Thursday, April 3, 2014

Ujaluo utaua wajaluo and Ukenya uta-tuua Sote?

I still believe the Kenyan approach to terrorism and general crime is outdated. We need a radical shift in the manner of force's recruitment. The metamorphosed nature of crime and terror tactics demand the recruiters spend more time in institutions of higher learning than watching candidates running and doing all sorts of physical gymnastics to select the recruits. There's need to up the ante as the criminal is more apt to stalk, hit and run in cyber space than on the ground so the relevant skills needed have drastically changed.  Finally the need to 'radicalise' our agents by giving them appropriate respect and recognition- humane terms and conditions of service, pay and other related benefits, then demanding professionalism from them.

In tandem with the security forces', other organs of state like the regulators of the communication sector, the immigration department, the registrar of persons, the local administration, grass-root structures like estate committees, all the way to the landlord and the tenant seeking a room-mate to demand transparency and accountability. A simple act of allowing an unregistered sim card to be used, a bribe to a clerk that ends in an ID made for unknown individual, a room leased out to an unknown individual, a car sold to an individual just because they did not bargain and paid in cash could end in a mass murder of innocent Kenyans- including those that played a part in the chain of events that led to the detonation of a bomb.

In short, all persons, to a degree are charged with the general status of security or insecurity and it is high time the government took up the responsibility of sensitising all to this fact. The citizens need to be educated on what their acts or omissions could result in and they need to see culpable persons in the government agencies disciplined for acts or omissions committed in offices that are charged with providing honest services to Kenyans- if corrupt officers were trooped to courts the way 'alco-blow' or police swoop victims are being done, charged and sentenced appropriately, it is my opinion this would go a long way in raising our national morale. Let us not continue reading of officers just being reshuffled, transferred or laid off after shoddy deals are uncovered. Most of these are criminals and should be charged in courts of law. Impunity, corruption, insecurity are all intertwined and each begets the other back and forth and should all be uprooted together.


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